


prayers met with indifference

by icarusandtheson



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Meetings, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-12
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-03-04 01:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13354056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icarusandtheson/pseuds/icarusandtheson
Summary: Alex isn’t sure how he’s meant to find whoever -- whatever -- the hell he met that night. Calling out loud is too close to insanity for his comfort, both looking it and feeling like it, and praying --No. He wasn’t a goddamn angel, he was just…Something.------After a strange night he can't completely recall, Alex searches for answers.





	prayers met with indifference

**Author's Note:**

> For Hobbes, as always, for beta-ing and for unwavering support.

Alex isn’t sure how he’s meant to find whoever  _ \-- whatever -- _ the hell he met that night. Calling out loud is too close to insanity for his comfort, both looking it and  _ feeling  _ like it, and  _ praying --  _

No. He wasn’t a goddamn  _ angel,  _ he was just… 

Something. Seventy-two hours of Alex raking through his memory in painstaking detail hasn’t yielded up more than that.  _ Something.  _

Alex huffs, tugs up the collar of his jacket as the cooling air stings his skin. He’s losing daylight, which might be a good thing, if he can make it without freezing. The man -- Alex is giving that designation for  _ convenience,  _ he was a hallucination, a fever dream, he wasn’t  _ real,  _ for fuck’s sakes -- found him at dusk. Alex recalls that much with perfect clarity. The bruised sky, smudged red and purple as the skin on his knuckles.

Alex flexes his left hand, feels the skin stretch easily over bone, unmarred and without any lingering soreness. Not even the discoloration of new skin forming where the knuckles were split. 

Three days. Three  _ fucking  _ days ago and his hand has been fixed ever since -- 

and the cold that he couldn’t shake, hadn’t been able to for months

and the hangover he should have had the next morning 

and sleeping through the night for the first time in  _ he doesn’t know  _

The worst part -- he can still feel the touch, the graze of warm fingers against his skin, the shock of it ricocheting in his gut. The peace that came over him, the security. The  _ silence. _

He ran. Of course he ran, all he has in him is fight or flight and he already chose  _ fight  _ once that night, had the bruises and blood to show for it. And hallucination or not, the man that stood in front of him could have crushed him if he wanted. If he was capable of doing anything but stare at Alex with so much sorrow it  _ hurt.  _

Alex can still feel it. The ache has made a home inside of him, curled around his ribs like some new, inconvenient organ that throbs whenever he has the gall to forget about it. It has him by the throat even now, drove him out of his apartment for  _ this,  _ whatever this is, stumbling around looking for a man he’s not even sure he saw in a pained, drunken haze -- 

“I distinctly remember telling you to stop hurting yourself.” 

Alex doesn’t walk into him, but it’s a near thing. He’s dressed for the weather this time, beige peacoat and a red scarf looped around his neck instead of the dress shirt he was wearing when they met. Somehow, Alex doesn’t think he feels a difference either way, not with the near-solar warmth Alex remembers resting under his skin. 

“I’m not,” Alex says, too-quick and almost angry for reasons he can’t name. He can’t find a safe place to look -- not the man’s broad hands, or the wide set of his shoulders, and sure as hell not his _face,_ not that strange knowing look that Alex can feel like a physical touch on his skin.

He’s been trying to scrub that look from his dreams for three nights. 

“You’re tearing your mind to shreds,” the man chides. He reaches up a hand as if to touch, and Alex wants to flinch but can’t. The hand pauses, retreats. He lapses into expectant silence. 

Alex imagined this a hundred times. He worked out everything he would say, every possible reaction he could have, and now all he can do is stare sullenly at the sidewalk, at the dingy wrapper hovering an inch or two from his shoe. 

Alex blinks, surprise registering slowly. He turns, sees the pedestrians behind him frozen in time. A woman fishing in her purse, a man stepping into a puddle formed in the cracked sidewalk. The minor splash is frozen, too, murky brown water stopped in an arc. Alex’s temples start to throb. 

“They’ll be alright,” the man promises. “I thought it would be easiest this way, unless you have a different preference?” 

“This is fine,” Alex says, after a lengthy moment of brain static that, if condensed, would translate to an endless loop of  _ what-the-fuck.  _ He says, “I,” but the rest of the sentence doesn’t unfurl after it.  _ I didn’t think you were real. I didn’t think I would find you even if you were.  _

“Thanks,” Alex says finally. “For my hand,” he clarifies, as if it could mean anything else. 

“You’re welcome,” the man replies, and he almost sounds amused. “Is that why you were looking for me? To thank me?”

There’s a  _ how did you know  _ begged by that question that Alex doesn’t want to ask, can’t ask. He looks up at the man properly,  _ finally,  _ sees that amusement reflected in warm brown eyes, fine lines crinkling as he watches Alex. 

“Yes.” He presses his mouth into a thin line, thinks. “No, actually. I wanted to ask why.” 

The man frowns in confusion, like the question was entirely unexpected. “You were hurt,” he says, and doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t seem like he thinks he has to. 

_ I’m  _ always  _ hurt,  _ Alex thinks,  _ what fucking difference did that night make?  _

And the next thought, too dangerous to complete:  _ where were you when -- _

“Right,” Alex says, too-sharp. Stupid. Just his luck to end up fucking vaporized. 

Sorrow, again. He could be some modernized painting, church-ready and poignant. 

“I can try to explain why I couldn’t intervene until now, but I’m not sure it will bring you any comfort,” he says, pained. A beat of silence. “I’m sorry, Alexander. More than I can say.”

Alex flinches, can’t stop it this time.

“Alex,” the man amends. “I’m sorry.“

“Do I get your name, or are you committed to this anonymous good Samaritan act?”

That earns a very human-sounding scoff. “George,” he says, in the voice of someone used to sharing an anglicized version of their name. Alex has the stomach-dropping realization that he probably couldn’t even begin to comprehend whatever original language it came from. 

“That’s not your name.”

George shrugs, an impossibly elegant movement. “It suits the purpose.”   

Alex shoves his hands into his coat pockets, cold and shuddering inside even though the wind froze with the rest of reality. He was used to the cold, the gnawing teeth of it that a Caribbean childhood could never have prepared him for, but now he remembers what it was like to be  _ warm,  _ the moment before the bones in his hand set painlessly and everything was  _ light  _ and  _ heat  _ and he could breathe without his own brain  _ screaming --  _ and it feels like he has to unlearn it all over again. 

George tilts his head, a sad smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You can ask, son.”

Alex looks away sharply, glares a hole into the upraised hand of a man caught mid-cab hail. Because he’s not an  _ idiot,  _ he’s not going to aggravate the supernatural being that  _ froze time  _ to talk to him. 

George sighs, and there’s a sound like… Alex doesn’t have the words for it, which is frightening and thrilling in equal measure. To experience something he can’t condense to letters on paper, on a screen. The closest approximation he can grasp is what sunlight would sound like, streaming in through a window. Alex fights the urge to look for a shamefully short amount of time. 

Alex glances back, and the warmth is  _ everywhere.  _

**Author's Note:**

> *I'm on Tumblr at [icarusandtheson](https://icarusandtheson.tumblr.com/), come say hi!


End file.
